Several times each year I have the privilege of discussing various management topics with MBA candidates at the University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Business. It is always invigorating for me, as many of these students are relatively new managers and often come armed with specific situations for discussion. It is thrilling to not only see the leadership potential, but to also see so many willing to step up and take responsibility for the work of and the development of others (i.e. they have chosen to be in management). In my most recent session, I was asked about the art of motivation. Specifically, how to maintain some level of motivation amongst employees from multiple generations. I replied with an obvious, cliche-ridden answer about how employee motivation is a very challenging management responsibility due to the individual nature of employees, the human psyche, what motivates one individual may not matter to another, you have to know your employees, blah blah blah. My answer was enough to keep the discussion going, but I could not help but think that I was missing something. As I thought about it more, I decided that the concept of effective motivation is grounded in a duality of sorts – between hard and soft; specific and general; internal and external; or between that which can be clearly defined in the now and that which is undefined that may happen in the future.

In short, managers who are most effective at motivating their employees have a firm grasp, at the individual employee level, on how to manage their organizations like a “Mom and Pop”. I am not referring to “Mom and Pop” in the sense of “a small retail business, usually owned and operated by members of a family” (thank you dictionary.com), although such proprietorships are certainly managed this way. Rather, I am referring to managers who can help employees identify Moments of Momentum (MoM) and Points of Progress (PoP) in their jobs and careers.

Moments of Momentum (MoM). These occur when an employee understands and embraces a vision for the task at hand, their future, the organization’s future, or the greater good that is going to come from their personal contributions. It is when the employee is mobilized, inspired, has the tools they need, and the organizational support necessary to fulfill their responsibilities to the best of their abilities. These are the moments in which the mission is clear and the employee has made the decision to personally invest their time and talents in pursuit of an outcome. To summarize hundreds of literary, lyrical, and cinematic references, MoMs are when employees capture the feeling to join their band of brothers, walk out on the wire, and win one for the Gipper. Moments of Momentum launch us into action. They are crucial, but they are fleeting.

Points of Progress (PoP). These occur when someone reaches a measurable outcome. It may be a promotion, the completion of a significant project, a “go live” implementation, a raise, the acquisition of a new skill, moving to a new role, winning a sales award, etc. Think back on your own career – I imagine that you can think of a few times off the top of your head when you truly felt like you had moved your career forward in some significant fashion. I can still vividly recall a few PoPs that I experienced after pulling an all nighter to deliver some code or the times that I have been asked to build new organizations. Points of Progress are distinct and definable. They are the achievement of goals by which we mark our careers.

We cannot have one without the other. If employees experience multiple MoMs with no PoPs to show for it, motivation will suffer and employees will become disengaged and disenfranchised. similarly, if an employee experiences many PoPs with few MoMs, they risk losing sight of the purpose of their life’s work and the PoPs will become increasingly insignificant. PoPs are the milestones that keep us seeking out the next MoM and MoMs keep us going towards the next PoP.

Each of us have to define our own Moments of Momentum and Points of Progress, and they will evolve as careers progress. As an employee, it is up to you to find what motivates you and what goals you are looking to achieve. If you are a manager, it is your responsibility to help your employees maintain the balance of MoMs and PoPs such that everyone is producing to their full capabilities for your organization while gaining maximum satisfaction from their careers.

The title above comes from a major plot device in Tom Clancy’s prescient 1994 thriller, “Debt of Honor”. It has come to be one of my favorite business & management cliches because, as with most cliches, it is true. I have found that it provides a compelling answer to a common question – “do you want me to drive new investment from my customers, or do you want me to report on it?”

An attractive aspect of the technical sales profession is the freedom. It is exciting to spend time with customers, understand their business needs, and help them apply technical solutions to those needs. The best sales engineers are self starters who are willing to step up, proactively engage with their customers, and find creative ways to solve business challenges. Another characteristic of such individuals is that they often de-prioritize administrative and reporting responsibilities. Sometimes to the point of completely ignoring them. There is no “balance” to be struck between driving new business and reporting on what new business is being driven and how. Rather, the latter should be done in support of the former. Many want to focus solely on their business outcomes such as revenue target attainment, profitability, or new customer acquisition, and ignore discussions about the behaviors and activities that enabled them to achieve those outcomes. Or not achieve those outcomes, as the case may be. Such behavior on the part of the seller can often lead to poor relationships with their management and get the offending rep tagged with the career limiting label of prima donna.

I don’t want that to happen to you, so let’s have a discussion about reporting. The primary and obvious reason for you to execute your business reporting responsibilities is because your management and your company require you to do it. If that is not enough, here are some other reasons that may or may not be so obvious:

• If and when you leave this position, you will want to leave a foundation of what you are working on, current opportunities, status, etc. in order to most effectively transition your role to your replacement. Unless you are into burning bridges. If you are transferring to another position in your company, the timing of your transition may in fact be determined by how easily your current responsibilities can be given to your replacement.
• If and when your current manager leaves their position, you need a foundation to start conversations with their replacement. Imagine the impression you will make with your new manager and the command of your territory you can show by having everything in order.
• Customer commitments, vacation, and other aspects of this very fluid profession may mean that you go for some time without a one-on-one cadence discussion with your manager. Having updated documentation gives your management the status that they may need to answer questions from THEIR management. Similar to the two points above, never underestimate the value of making your manager’s job easier.
• No matter how successful you are, there will be some point in which you will fall behind in pipeline or making your revenue plan. In those times you are going to need to ensure that all of your activity and reporting systems are accurate and up to date. If your output is not meeting expectations, you need to demonstrate that you are doing everything else correctly and the results may be indicative of conditions beyond your control.
• Taking the time to record the next steps in an opportunity pursuit forces you to truly consider what options you need to be considering for your next step(s). It also sets the stage for any coaching conversations with your management or collaboration discussions with your peers.
• In our age of instrumentation, your organization is likely looking for measures and analytics to better understand the efficiency of the sales function. Keeping your information updated ensures that your methods, deliverables, successes, and failures are represented in the broader operation of your business. You should do your part to improve the overall organization. You will be impacted by any job role changes that are driven by such analysis.

You don’t have to be a history buff to understand why if you didn’t write it down, it never happened. Whether keeping your CRM updated to build a more complete profile of your customer, accurately forecasting your opportunities, driving companywide efficiency efforts, or simply meeting your management’s expectations, the answer to “do you want me to do my job or report on it?” is an unequivocal “yes”.

Like any recurring good habit that can be marked by time, the middle of the year is as good a time as any to ensure that the professional image that you are presenting to your customers and your industry does not become stagnant. So block off an hour or so to…

Update your resume. I am constantly looking for candidates to join my organization. And I am constantly surprised by the number of professionals, regardless of the stage of their career, who either need a few days “to get my resume together” or provide me with something that hasn’t been updated for years. I don’t want to engage in any discussion about the effectiveness of different resume styles, lengths, etc., as I am more concerned with the basic act of keeping it updated. I will, however, urge you to avoid bad habits such as including a superlative-laden “career objective” section that says nothing about your abilities, focusing on jargon-filled responsibilities rather than results, and spending a lot of space listing out every acronym and technology that you have ever touched. Your resume should be saved as a PDF file that can be readily sent to an interested party (no one likes to be annoyed by the opening of Word or Pages just to read a document, particularly given the increased use of mobile devices). And be sure to include a link in your resume to your LinkedIn profile, because the next step in your midyear career maintenence is to…

Update your LinkedIn profile. In my recruiting efforts, I am equally amazed at the number of incomplete or nonexistent LinkedIn profiles. I tend to think of it this way – if someone has chosen to take the time to create a professional profile on LinkedIn, then why did they choose to do it in such an unprofessional manner? Is this an indicator of other unprofessional behavior that I should be concerned about? Do they have a habit of leaving activities incomplete or not following up? Is this the sort of person that I can trust to engage with my customers and present themselves and our solutions in the best possible light? As a customer, can I be sure that this individual will be thorough in exploring the needs of my business bringing me the appropriate solutions? Gaps in employment, ignoring education, and merely listing one’s current title/employer are the most common infractions. Your network and potential network is using this to learn about you, so you need to let them know what sort of professional you are. A final tip – I enjoy the music of Rush as much or more than the next guy, but that doesn’t mean that I should use a picture of Neil Peart in my LinkedIn profile (ok maybe on his birthday). The same goes for your pet ferret, your kids, or your favorite photo from that infamous frat party of yesteryear. LinkedIn is NOT Facebook.

One thought on length – given the space allowed, I recommend LinkedIn as the place to store the most complete picture of one’s career and experiences. The resume should be somewhat shorter, more focused, and include statements of results in order to capture the reader’s attention. Prospective hiring managers are going to look at both anyway, so you may as well use them both to tell your complete story. And that story is complete when you…

Update your “dust jacket” bio. Now that you have updated the details in your resume and LinkedIn profile, summarize it. Shrink it down into a maximum of four or five sentences describing you as a professional. Add a professional photo of yourself and save this as an editable document (Word or Pages). Having such a document at the ready will come in handy whenever a customer, colleague, or other interested party is in need of a brief introduction. It might be included in proposals, whitepapers, or other customer deliverables; organizational summaries that your management may be building; speaking engagements at your local college; or presentation opportunities at customer or industry conferences. Think of it like the brief author bios that appear on the dust jackets of your favorite books.

As a responsible adult, you likely take your car to the shop, visit the dentist, and get your home HVAC systems inspected on a regular basis. Your career deserves the same sort of attention. Consider adding this resume updating exercise to your other monthly or quarterly activities such as printing the account information and passwords from your password management software and storing them in safe place, printing out all of your contacts’ information from your e-mail or contact management system (remember, paper NEVER crashes), and updating the business results that you will eventually be submitting into your employer’s performance appraisal system at the end of the year.